Flack's Revenge

The McChrystal Affair: Important Story or Journalistic Cheap Shot?

So was it a journalistic cheap shot, which ran in a pop culture rag and made a big deal over over "routine kvetching?" Or was it an important article for a "sophisticated audience" by a "serious-minded agenda-setter?"

However you spell it, the Rolling Stone article about General McChrystal was a big PR coup for the magazine. There's been a ton of buzz in its aftermath, and a range of views expressed by commentators and the print media.

In his excellent NY Times op ed, David Brooks says that McChrystal and company's tirade was just an example of the usual belly aching that has been going on forever when important people and big egos are involved. The difference now is that we are in a culture of exposure that thrives on this inside baseball scuttlebutt.

He writes about how a culture of reticence morphed into a culture of exposure over the past 50 years: 

...after Vietnam, an ethos of exposure swept the culture... It became the task of journalism to expose the underbelly of public life... Then came cable, the Internet, and the profusion of media sources. Now you have outlets, shows and Web sites whose only real interest is the kvetching and inside baseball.

... General McChrystal was excellent at his job. He had outstanding relations with the White House... But McChrystal, like everyone else, kvetched. And having apparently missed the last 50 years of cultural history, he did so on the record, in front of a reporter. And this reporter, being a product of the culture of exposure, made the kvetching the center of his magazine profile.

By putting the kvetching in the magazine, the reporter essentially took run-of-the-mill complaining and turned it into a direct challenge to presidential authority. He took a successful general and made it impossible for President Obama to retain him.

The WSJ reported yesterday about the Rolling Stone's record of breaking big stories, and the potential of the McChrystal story to give it an image lift:

Rolling Stone continues to battle perceptions that it is merely a biweekly window into popular culture, not also a serious-minded agenda-setter for a sophisticated audience... Rolling Stone has a long history of covering politics and wars dates back to its launch in 1967.

The enduring value of the McChrystal article rests in its potential to burnish the magazine's reputation as a serious journalistic enterprise. Four of Rolling Stone's seven National Magazine Awards in the past decade have been for political stories

The article also details the publication's efforts to promote the story:

The publisher gave an advanced copy of the article to the Associated Press last Monday in a commonly used tactic to generate prepublication excitement. By Monday night, the commander's comments were rumbling across the blogosphere. On Tuesday morning the article briefly appeared in full on two other sites. With the story taking off, Rolling Stone was compelled to break from its standard practice to rush the story online.

Got Pork? The Other White Meat

 I don't know exactly why, but I have always been  amused by the ad campaign: Pork - the Other White Meat!

It could be because my slightly warped mind is usually working over time, hyperactively darting around in search of irony and word play at every opportunity.  And that particular phrase seems rife with potential. 

These thoughts occurred to me as I scanned one of my favorite parts of the NY Times Saturday paper, "Most Popular," from the business section. It shows the most popular blog posts and articles of the week.

My eyes quickly zeroed in on a story I had somehow missed in the Bits blog; Unicorns, the Other White Meat. This I had to see! I found it, read it, and have to say that the post delivered on the promise of its juicy headline.  It is about the website ThinkGeek's tradition of April Fool's posts, and what happened with the latest:

As ThinkGeek needs to up the ante each year, in 2010 it decided to create a product called Canned Unicorn Meat. The tag line for this new delicacy? “Pâté is passé. Unicorn, the new white meat.”...

It was, of course, fake.

Although it is probably clear to most nerds and wildlife experts, the National Pork Board, an organization devoted to pork and related businesses and farms, saw a threat to the national brand of pork, otherwise known as “the other white meat.” So the organization sent ThinkGeek a cease-and-desist letter.

ThinkGeek published the letter and offered this apology on its Web site to the board: “We’d like to publicly apologize to the N.P.B. for the confusion over unicorn and pork — and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn’t actually exist.”

I know I am tempting fate and the ire of the National Pork Board by writing about this, but hey, you don't have a blog called Revenge without being willing to take some risks - that is the way I pork roll, baby.

Do we need a new metaphor for "Talking Head?"

I have a post on Social Fluency today that takes a closer look at talking heads - not the band, but the phrase as it applies to news pundits.

The post takes a closer look at a question asked by the NY Times: Obama's recent speech was roundly panned by the media elite, but does that really matter any more - do the pundits still have same sway over public opinion that they once had before the advent of citizen journalism?

I include an excerpt from the article and added:

There is no denying that the punditry still has some impact – their opinions get recycled and repeated endlessly.  Indeed, their near universal agreement on Obama’s speech became part of the evolving story line.

But it is pretty clear that we are becoming a nation of pundits and news publishers.  Every time you share a link on Twitter, Facebook or in a blog post you are publishing news.  Add some analysis, and voila!  You too can become a talking head.

NY Times Covers PR and VCs

The NY Times covered the addition of Outcast Communications co-founder Margit Wennmachers to the partner ranks of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz.  The article mentioned the dearth of marketing executives in top VC roles, and the importance of PR:

Several other venture capital firms have marketing executives, but few are at the partner level...  Public relations plays a critical role for tech start-ups, especially Web companies aimed at the general population, because they have little money for advertising and rely on getting attention in order to find users, employees and investors.

Perhaps this marks the start of a trend, and we will hear about more PR executives joining VC firms in senior roles.

"We're a B2B Company. Why should we care about Social Media?"

I have a post on the Social Fluency blog that refutes the notion that social media is not relevant for B2B companies.  In my post Social Media and B2B: Hit or Myth? I write:

Regardless of whether you are a B2B or B2C, you can rest assured that your business prospects go online to find information related to your business...

So, you need to consider search engine optimization and online industry media, that much is clear.  But it is also true that people are increasingly discovering and sharing content through various forms of social media...

Business and tech stories that originate in traditional media can be buzzed about endlessly online, and this can effect future coverage and the trajectory of the story.   Bloggers are increasingly becoming sources for stories and breaking news on their own.

While it is true that the networks and forums might vary – and you simply need to take the time to understand these – in my experience, in just about every tech industry (and non tech, too, I would guess) there are forms of social media that are very important for B2B...

Right now, while you are reading this, people are buzzing about issues related to your area of business – and very likely about you and your competitors (don’t just take my word for it; you can go ahead and plug the right key word or brand name searches into the following social search sites: Social Mention, Same Point, uberVU, Twitter search, Google blog search, etc.)

Don’t you want to take part in the conversation?

When Spokespeople Attack: Whitman Victim's Unit

It can sometimes get a little intense when preparing clients to meet with the media, whether via general media training sessions, or coaching for one off interviews.

Clients just want to get their stories across, and may not be used to the tough questions that can come with interviews. They might not like being challenged, or confronted with the reality that the reporter might intentionally try to get a reaction. Or, they may be nervous in anticipation of an interview with a reporter that is known to be an aggressive cross examiner.

The media trainer, on the other hand, just wants to do a good and thorough job in preparing the spokesperson to meet with the press.  We are the messengers, and prefer not to be the proverbial ones that get shot or caught in the cross fire.  Yet that is what the NY Times says happened at eBay when Meg Whitman reportedly shoved an employee who was preparing her for an interview.  According to the Times

In June 2007, an eBay employee claimed that Ms. Whitman became angry and forcefully pushed her in an executive conference room at eBay’s headquarters, according to multiple former eBay employees with knowledge of the incident... The employee, Young Mi Kim, was preparing Ms. Whitman for a news media interview that day.

You can call it "Chevy" or "Chevrolet" - Just Don't Call it Late for Dinner

So was it just a plain old bad idea? Was it a "rough draft" and a "bit of fun," as a senior Chevrolet executive explained, regarding a memo disclosed by the NY Times yesterday in which the company exhorted against use of Chevy in favor of the full name?  Or was it something more sinister, even clever, a stunt designed to get fresh attention for the old brand?

The company wasted little time in responding to the negative public reaction in response to the NY Times article, which reported:

Bye-bye, indeed, Miss American Pie. If General Motors has its way, you won't be driving your Chevy to the levee ever again.On Tuesday, G.M. sent a memo to Chevrolet employees at its Detroit headquarters, promoting the importance of "consistency" for the brand, which was the nation's best-selling line of cars and trucks for more than half a century after World War II.

And one way to present a consistent brand message, the memo suggested, is to stop saying "Chevy," though the word is one of the world's best-known, longest-lived product nicknames.

In today's paper, there was a follow-up piece, which said:

But after a strong public reaction to a report in The New York Times on the note, G.M. issued a statement on Thursday that said the memorandum had been “poorly worded.” The statement said that the memorandum reflected Chevrolet’s strategy as it expanded internationally, but that the company was not “discouraging customers or fans from using” Chevy.

Got crisis? Don't bother us with more than one at a time, please

It is marketing conventional wisdom: when it comes to brand awareness, there is only room for two or three leaders in any product category. All others are pretty much disregarded - people just can't seem to make sense of or remember so many product choices.

Similarly, is our ability to focus on too many crises at a time limited?  That is what an article in yesterday's New York Times says.

There’s no obvious link between an American bank, a British oil driller and a Japanese car maker. But the reputational struggles of these three global giants suggest one lesson that won’t be lost on shrewd corporations: the court of public opinion — led by the political class and including the media — appears capable of coping with only one villain at a time.

The reporter (no byline, a Reuters story) came to this conclusion by examining media coverage of Toyota, BP and Goldman Sachs in recent months.

Using Social Media to Build Influencer Relationships

I have a post on the Social Fluency blog today: Getting on the Radars of Influencers via Social Media.

It covers ways that you can use social media, e.g. blogs and Twitter, to build relationships with influencers.  Please see below for an excerpt, and visit Social fluency to read the full post.

For all the challenges the PR profession faces amidst the transition to an online-centric media world, it is important to realize that there are new opportunities too.

One example is in the realm of media and analyst relations.  While it is true that the influencers we want to court have more distractions than ever (just like everyone else) it is also true that there are now more ways to get on their radars – especially if they (and you) are active online.

Here are some examples:

For influencers who blog (or whose articles appear online):

• Comment on their posts/articles
• Link to their posts/articles
• Add their blog to your/client’s blogroll
• Write posts that mention and link to their posts/article
• Invite them to subscribe to your (or client’s) blog
• Invite them to guest post on your (or client’s) blog

For influencers who tweet:

• Follow them
• Call out and comment on their tweets via retweets and mentions
• Thank them if they follow you
• Use direct messages (carefully)
• Use hash tags to align with topical areas
• Tweet about topics relevant to their beats

Would You Believe: Press Release Chip Shot the Cure for the Gulf Oil Mess?

The Gulf oil spill has given the world a taste of oil industry jargon. 

Jargon is something that we deal with and take for granted every day in the tech PR world.  It is sometimes interesting and fun to see families and friends chew on unfamiliar terms as related technologies start to enter the mainstream - e.g. I have had to explain blogging and Twitter to my dad, who is almost 80.

With the Gulf oil mess, the language used to describe potential fixes seems almost designed to capture attention. The whole episode reminds me of scenes from the old TV show Get Smart - the ones where Agent Smart, played by Don Adams, tries to get out of difficult situations through hollow threats, each one prefaced by "Would you believe..." Such as (when a KAOS agent is holding Smart at gunpoint and it is pretty clear that the cavalry is not coming to save him) "Would you believe this building is now surrounded by angry boy scouts?"

They say that laughter is the best medicine (and I would laugh if it weren't so sad), but just for yucks I thought I'd imagine a riff on oil spill cures tried so far - and one additional cure: would you believe a wad consisting of all the paper created by all press releases that are cast aside could plug that hole?